


Scope and Tragedy

by Slyboots



Category: Transformers: Prime
Genre: Banter, Dialogue Heavy, During Canon, Flash Fic, Fluff and Humor, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-14
Updated: 2021-02-14
Packaged: 2021-03-14 07:14:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 947
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29414688
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Slyboots/pseuds/Slyboots
Summary: “Talk about a love story,” mused Knock Out. “One little frag. Spend the next umpty-ump million stellar cycles trying to snuff each other.”“Guess the frag was pretty bad.”On a boring stakeout, Knock Out and Breakdown discuss the nature of love.
Relationships: Knock Out/Breakdown
Comments: 14
Kudos: 61





	Scope and Tragedy

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Valentine's Day 2021.

The last sun spilled languidly across the vista, warm on their backs. For cycles they watched the road.

“Think Soundwave’s listening?”’ The mingled static of a thousand ham radios poured from Breakdown’s antenna. Knock Out had thought him dozing.

“I doubt it,” said Knock Out. “Poor sap would've died of boredom.”

Breakdown’s mirrors twitched, unconvinced.

For moments they sat in amiable silence, close enough to vibrate with the hum of each other’s engines.

“They’re not coming.” Breakdown pulled forward with a sleepy growl, his tires pushing up furrows. “You know they’re not. I know they’re not—”

“Lord Megatron doesn’t know they’re not.”

There was a logic to it, Knock Out thought, and Breakdown respected logic.

Breakdown paused at the edge of the ridge, a hulking silhouette against the tangerine sky. “Praxian leave.”

“Absent—with a darn good reason.”

Breakdown’s throaty laugh dislodged a shower of pebbles. Salty-smelling dust mushroomed up from far below; Knock Out coughed, pointedly.

“So—” Breakdown’s radio crackled.

“So,” said Knock Out triumphantly.

“—so what d’we do?”

It fell short in the vast quiet.

“Could go back to the ship now,” said Breakdown, with infuriating reasonableness. “Get a new assignment. Get some recharge. Get to stretch my legs.”

“Get some  _ real _ dents in our fenders from the Fallen-and-I-Can’t-Get-Up.”

Breakdown’s laugh was warm as the Mojave sun. Knock Out luxuriated in that laugh. “If Soundwave’s listening—”

Knock Out cut him off. “Soundwave sucks Megatron’s greasy tailpipe.”

Breakdown pulled back, his mirrors tilting in what Knock Out knew to be horror, though the laugh welled up in him, all the same. “Thanks. We’re dead.”

“If we’re not dead in five cycles,” said Knock Out, “he’s not listening.” And then: “Relax, Breakdown. A little R&R. Time away from the old hulk. Room to really  _ let loose. _ With my dazzling company—”

“Hard to let loose sitting by a road all night.” Breakdown’s indicators flickered, maddeningly. Knock Out revved, flicking dirt at him. Breakdown knew better than to kick dirt back.

They sat in silence for a cycle.

“D’you suppose Soundwave  _ does _ suck—”

“With what, his tentacles?” Breakdown grunted, as if deep in thought; for a moment Knock Out (almost) regretted interrupting him. “Maybe. He’s not exactly—uh—touchy-feely.”

“Truly a romance for the ages,” said Knock Out. “Mm—you’re right. Can’t see him getting down and dirty.”

“Revved up.”

“Topping off the ol’ engine oil.”

“Tailgating,” said Breakdown, warming to it.

Knock Out snickered. It had been too long; they’d been run-down and inarticulate. “Riding the rear.”

“Rotating the tires.”

“Putting a little  _ fluid _ in the transmission.” Knock Out was proud of that one. He allowed himself a flash of the low-beams.

“You made that one up.” Breakdown’s indicators flickered again. Night was falling in earnest now; beneath a violet sky, his paint looked so rich Knock Out could’ve drowned in it.

_ "Naturellement.” _

For another cycle they sat, watching a distant truck rise and fall over the heaped-up hills. Lights were flickering on the horizon, the blurry glow of human cities.

“Breakdown?”   
  
“Yeah?”

“I may die of boredom. Talk to me.”

Breakdown looked smug, if an alt-mode could look smug. “I’ve been thinking. You know the story of the Thirteen?”

He did; they’d seen it in cheaply pious holoplays, on desperate nights when nothing else could be pirated. “May have ignored it once or twice.”

“Why Megatronus?”

It was a fair question. Breakdown often asked fair questions. Knock Out searched his memory banks; nothing pinged. “Liege Maximo’s harder to say. We’d all be calling him Max. Maximus. Big.”

Breakdown went silent, evidently considering this at length. Terran languages had leaked, almost without their noticing, into their banter; Breakdown loved language, and Knock Out loved him for it.

“Megatronus. The Fallen. Tad bit humorless. Had a love affair of  _ Primal _ proportions with Solus Prime—and I’m sure she  _ hammered _ a few things—” Knock Out smacked his vocoder. “Then he killed her. Oh well. Not much of a story.”

“What every femme dreams about.”

“Not much of a  _ name," _ said Knock Out, warming to it. “Unless the big guy’s a closet romantic—”

As one they laughed heartily at that.

“You  _ are _ gonna get us slagged.” Breakdown puffed, blowing dust across a scattering of scrub.

It was probably true. Knock Out didn’t falter. “In for a Shanix. In for armed robbery. D’you think Megatron and His Obsequious Primacy—”

Breakdown regarded him at length, as if suspecting he didn’t know what  _ obsequious _ meant.

“Talk about a love story,” mused Knock Out. “One little frag. Spend the next umpty-ump million stellar cycles trying to snuff each other.”

“Guess the frag was pretty bad.”

Again they chuckled, indelicately, as one.

The last of the light was trickling away. In the sour orange glow of Breakdown’s indicators, scorpions scuttled self-importantly through the dust.

“Just a touch melodramatic,” said Knock Out, who was never melodramatic. “Love story for the ages. The  _ scope. _ The  _ tragedy. _ Brings lubricant to my optic.”

“Crash and burn,” said Breakdown, who was often concise. “If that’s what it takes to get remembered, I’d rather be forgotten. No big love story for me, thanks.”

Knock Out’s engine turned over in shock.

“What?” Breakdown angled his mirrors, reflecting his indicators’ glow into two neat pools. “I’m a regular Con. Don’t need too much. Just a mech who makes me laugh—”

Knock Out subsided. He could live with that.

For long cycles they stared at the stars, side by side, and watched a meteor streak through the dizzying sky.

“Breakdown,” tried Knock Out, who was never one for sincerity, “you make me laugh too.”

“I know,” said Breakdown, with such warmth it made Knock Out nearly gasp aloud. “You wanna go for a drive?”


End file.
